Friday, October 19, 2007

Looking Ahead

XC season will end either this weekend or the next, depending on regionals. I of course hope we advance. Until then, the timing is working out pretty nicely for recovery mode as I'm running the warm-ups and cool-downs with them. On a selfish note, I'm looking forward to having more time in the afternoons to concentrate on my own workouts once I'm recovered.

I'm leaning towards not running the Stonecat 50 next month. I'm just not motivated, pure and simple. I will be going down though to cheer on several friends who are running it though, and maybe volunteer as well.

But as for my own running, I would rather ease into building up a good base again over the fall and winter. I'm convinced that served me extremely well at the Vermont 100. It was just a matter of kicking off the rust after the knee surgery, but because that base was there, I was fine. That base also served me well at the Hyannis Marathon last February, despite my DNF. I just ran a stupid race, and it was own mind that beat me, not my legs.

On top of that, building up that base was a lot of fun. I really, really enjoyed clocking in 70-80 miles a week and am looking forward to getting to that point again. It felt more like running because it was fun, because the pace was always pretty easy. The miles would tick by while the mind wandered. It was quite pleasant.

So what's the base for? The Western States 100 in late June, if I'm picked in the lotto. If I'm not picked, I'll do the Massanutten 100 in late May instead. And then in July, I'd like to do the Vermont 100 again. There will also be some marathons and shorter ultras thrown in there as well, but I haven't decided which ones for sure yet.